The Charm in the Tapestry
by KristieConspiracy
Summary: I haven't been able to sleep because my new home is just so bloody claustrophobic. So what if that means I'll be careless while wondering through Malfoy Manor? Written for Tris's Bookshelf Challenge, prompt: Magic in the Weaving; for CheekSlytherinLass's Scavenger Hunt, prompt: 25. Fic over 3,000 words


**Challenge: **TrisanaChandler13's _Tris's Bookshelf Challenge_ on HPFC  
Cheeky Slytherin Lass's _Fanfiction Scavenger Hunt Competition_ on HPFC

**Characters: **Rose Weasley, Scorpius Malfoy

**Prompt: **_The Magic in the Weaving_ and the Scottish song, _Bonnie Banks O' Lock Lomond (You Take the High Road)  
_Prompt _25: Fic with over 3000 words_

**Word Count: **3,402

**A/N:** I'll be the first to admit that this wasn't planned at all. I quite like where it ended up, though. Also, the text after the second 'break' is from _The Magic in the Weaving_ by Tamora Pierce.

* * *

_**But me and my true love**_  
_**Will never meet again**_  
_**On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.**_

_"__Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond (You Take the High Road)__", an old Scottish song_

* * *

I have always loved going to Malfoy Manor.

Oh, don't get me wrong, it was a little ominous at first, back before third year. That was the first time I ran away from home.

Dad had just found out that I'd gone and befriended Scorpius, even though he'd told me not to. I'd begun to fume, since by then we'd been friends for two years, and just because dad had_ finally_ taken an interest in my education because of Hugo starting at Hogwarts he'd discovered something he disliked, didn't mean I had to oblige his perverse demands. I certainly wasn't going to stop being friends with the person who, by then, I trusted more than anyone else. So I'd more or less thrown a tantrum and been grounded, before dad threatened to pull me from Hogwarts - he was beyond even mums' efforts to talk sense into him, by that point. I'd written a hasty, messy and tear-stained letter to Scorp, begging refuge. He'd shown up on the doorstep that same afternoon, and him and his father had swept me off to the Manor.

That wasn't the only time I ran away, either. There were dozens more incidents, always over summer, the last only days after graduation. Each of them were because of Ron Weasley.

I loved my dad, I still do, but he could be so overbearing. He struggles with basic concepts, he can barely cast spells that are easy for mum and I, and he's just so _male_. I say that with the kindest intentions, I am not a misandrist: my best friend is very much a man, thank you. He's a pretty fine one, too. He played Quidditch for the Slytherin team, Seeker, just like his dad. They're required, so far as I can tell, to be lean and toned and just generally handsome, heart breakers, born and raised.

I'm blushing as I walk alone through the halls of Malfoy Manor, having been invited this time by Scorpius, who I know hates my tiny little apartment that's so full of books there's barely room for a bed. The halls here are long and lined with every manner of picture: there are painted portraits that chatter like children, moving photographs that are like a ten-second repeating film of a moment, tapestries woven with all the care an artist really should give their work.

The images of the weaving are woven intricately; they're like magic, and I can feel myself being absorbed into the weaving. Like in a dream or a vision, I'm suddenly standing on the shore of a body of water I've never seen before, though it has echoes of Lake Coeur d'Alene, which I saw in Idaho during my gap year. The lake itself is beautiful and blue, it seems to stretch for miles in its' flawless stillness, the bright sun shining off the surface in a blinding flare. The greens that border it are forestry and grass, and they make it seem serene and isolated, though I can hear vehicles nearby, so there's a road.

"It's beautiful here, isn't it? I came here for a vacation the summer before we met."

I whip around, my neck cracking as loudly as a whip. "Scorpius?" I ask, surprised, but then I wonder why it came as a surprise: _of course_ Scorpius is here. He's _always _been here. He's meant to be here, with me.

"You're not bad, yourself," I chide, smiling at him. When he smiles back with his usual self-assured ease, I'm comforted. When he leans down and kisses me lightly on the cheek, I'm surprised. Then I forget I was ever surprised, because _of course_ he kissed me. That's what your true love is meant to do, after all.

"What type of bird is singing, Rosie?"

I tilt my head as if to listen, but really I'm just confused by the question. He never calls me Rosie, because I detest the nickname - it's what dad calls me, when we're not at each others' throats. And there are no birds calling near us. I can't hear anything except for cars on a road and an odd echo of his words.

And then I hear a whistle, a quick tune as memorable as a verse of a nursery rhyme. It occurs to me that the bird must always have been whistling and I just didn't notice because I'm feeling so very content. This is a lovely place, so very peaceful, like a fantasy within my mind, too perfect to refuse, too good to doubt.

_But things that seem too good to be true, usually are._

I shake the thought from my head, answering Scorpius' question; it's a Pied Wagtail, and he knows that. He has _always_ called me Rosie, because it's a term of endearment, and he is nothing if not endearing. The Pied Wagtail has _always_ been singing. I have _always_ been here.

Everything has _always_ been. I wonder how I got there, and then, suddenly, I don't. I'm shaking very hard, harder than anything I've ever felt before, and I really don't wonder how I got there, because everything has _always_ been and, therefore, I have _always_ been here, on the shore of this lake where I can hear cars that are _always_ the _exact same_ distance away, and Pied Wagtails' singing. The grass has _always_ been so green and soft beneath my feet. The trees have _always_ been exactly this height, both towering over me and also shrinking into the sky. This day has _always_ been, and _always_ will be. This weather has _always_ been dominant here, it has never been anything but perfectly clear and sunny.

_But why is everything shaking?_

Nothing is shaking, _nothing_, nothing has _ever_ been shaking. Every thought I have where something is not perfect, not ideal, is completely and utterly _wrong_ and nothing will ever change that. I _belong_ here, by this lake, I always have belonged here and I always will. _This _is why it feels like a dream, _this_ is why this is Heaven, _this _is why -

_But, seriously, __**why**__ is everything shaking__**?**_

* * *

"Rose!"

I jerk to my senses like something possessed, snapping upright instantly. My head is aching and I promptly decide I must have the worst luck in the world.

Why?

Because I seem to have broken the nose of Draco Malfoy, the father of my best friend and crush. Oh, and the reason I'm currently estranged from my parents. His blood, bright red against his pale skin, is dripping quite rapidly down over his thin lips and pointed chin, but he isn't making any movements to remedy this. He's staring at me, concern evident in his wise grey eyes, and I wonder if they've always looked exactly like Scorpius' and I didn't notice, or I did notice and I've just lost my mind.

"Sorry," I squeak, after a long moment of staring at him. He sighs in relief, and it's only when he loosens his grip that I notice his hands are on my shoulders. I continue to stare at him, my blue eyes fixating on his hands, which suddenly seem very white against the remnants of my Australia-induced tan. Part of me wishes I had worn something else, but it's only just turned Autumn, and I love this shirt - spaghetti strap, a red-brown colour with golden decals across the top. I'm wearing it with leggings and boots, and maybe it's blasphemous to wear such incredibly 'muggle' clothing in a house that is a pureblood legacy, but who cares? It's about time wizards started to adapt to modern society.

"You need to be more careful, Miss Weasley. You could have died, had I not happened along."

"Died?" My voice is sadly, pathetically, weak. It sounds like I'm a kitten, or maybe an infant, a mewling newborn. Thank God I was never a Gryffindor, or the jokes about lions and my apparent situation-based shyness would never cease.

"_'Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond'_, he says gesturing towards the tapestry. "It's cursed. Sort of."

My nose crinkles the exact same way mums' does, whenever she doesn't know something or doubts a given statement. Judging by his smirk, he recognises the expression. "How can something be _sort of_ cursed?"

"It's technically a charm," he says. "Every person who looks at it experiences a different aspect of the lake, depending on their personality and values. It was created around 1880, to commemorate some ancestors holiday - my great-grandfather or one of his brothers, I think. He went a place called Loch Lomond. It's in Scotland, the largest inland stretch of water in all of Great Britain. It's surface area is seventy-one square kilometres across, with sixty islands on it: Inchailloch, Inchmurrin, Inchfad, Creagan." I'm listening to him roll the names in a very precise manner, and it occurs to me that the Malfoys' must all be trained from birth to be so flawless. How else could they all pull off a flawless Scottish accent? "Now there's a golf club, boating and watersport association, a cycle path and a train station, and a shopping complex that Astoria and I took Scorpius to after he got his Hogwarts letter.

"Loch Lomond has this song written about it, of the same name as the tapestry, which is popular among muggles, but that wasn't written until the mid-1800s. It's always had some importance in wizarding society: it's a place of extreme magical power. Many pureblood families have vacation homes on them, but they aren't allowed to settle there permanently due to a decree regarding magical potency dating back to when the Ministry of Magic was formed. Plants grown there are more powerful, prophecies made there are more likely to be true, magical creatures on its' banks are much more deadly but also more human. It's rather unusual, really. It's the only place of its' like in all of Europe."

"Oh," I manage.

He blinks, coming back to the present, and looks down at me with what I recognise as renewed concern. "Rose, are you feeling well?"

"Why is the thing cursed?"

"It's designed to make a person experience a dream-like state, a haven. If they stay too long, or they're caught off guard, then become trapped. If they accept the world presented by the tapestry, then their mind, imagination, awareness, _soul_ - whatever you want to call it. It becomes trapped. The body wastes away while the mind thrives, consumed with the illusion."

"I see," I say, though I really don't. My head is spinning. I feel like I've just stepped off of some sort of muggle carnival ride, like the ones I went on - and quite enjoyed - in Paris' Disney World. Unfortunately, the nausea that came with the free fall is present.

"Miss Weasley?"

"I think I'm going to be sick."

I catch sight of a flash of pity, I see him draw his wand, hear him mutter a spell.

I welcome the impending darkness like an old friend.

* * *

"_'It's no accident that Niko was at your sentencing - he'd had a premonition of a boy with the green magic in him. I knew he was right when I heard my bean plants welcome you. You got them all excited, my buck. They wanted to throw out seed pods a month early. I had to be stern with them.'  
'That ain't magic,' he protested.  
'Of course it is, and important magic at that. The most important, to my way of thinking. You don't have to share that with Lark or Niko.'_"

The voice stops ,and the rustling of pages turning becomes evident, a sound more familiar to me than my own heartbeat. It occurs to me that someone is reading. I know the voice, too, vaguely aware in the back of my mind that I know the owner, too.

He continues, reading about a thief and a dark-eyed woman as they discuss plants and their magic. They aren't talking about magic how I understand it, though, and I place the book eventually, and with it, I suddenly remember everything I could ever want to know.

"Really, Scorpius?"

He stops in the middle of a sentence about horse-riding. "I thought you'd appreciate the irony, if... _when_ you woke up."

I deliberately ignore the dubious slip, since I'm sure it doesn't mean anything. I clear my throat. "_The Magic in the Weaving_. Tamora Pierce. You're near the end of the book."

"Dad came and got me after he stunned you. He said you needed bed rest and some stomach settling potion, plus a calming draught. They're on the bedside table."

I glanced to the side, finding three separate vials. One was the colour of and would have the scent of lavender, the calming draught. I downed it quickly, picking up the rosy pink stomach settling potion and downing that, too. In the sense of calm that follows, I frown. The pale blue one is one that I don't recognise. "What is it?"

"Wiggenweld, Rose. Fourth year, remember?"

"Oh," I say, feeling like an idiot. Then, "I haven't used any potions for a while."

"Evidently. Do you want me to keep reading?"

"Not particularly." I swallow half of the Wiggenweld potion, promptly choking on it as it drives past the new lump in my throat. He reaches out and smacks my back, replacing my choking with a coughing fit as he rubs his hand in a steady circle over my back, behind where my heart is beating like I've just run a marathon. "Merlin!"

He smiles thinly, which I only know because he has that little lilt in his voice that means he's quite cheerful, actually, thank you very much, and not to ask questions. _He was going to say that I'd like him to read to me, 'if' I woke up. If. _

"It's just a little hallucination!"

He leans back as I turn my head to look at him, fixing my blue eyes on his silver ones. He told me, not long after my book collection almost killed him, that I have more freckles across my nose than I had before my trip around the world: one hundred and eighty six. At the time, I didn't understand why he had counted every one of the little imperfections, unless he did so to rub in his own flawlessness.

Since then, of course, I've come to realise that he isn't flawless. I already knew: I always have, and not because some stupid cursed, or charmed, or whatever, tapestry, is making me. I've been _subconsciously _aware, and since become _consciously _aware. He has five freckles on his face, all on the right side, all low on his cheek and, one of them, perfectly on the line where his jaw becomes a chin. His skin is darker than his fathers, but only marginally, and it almost seems to glow in the candlelight - but then, it always has. His silver eyes sparkle like twin moons in perfect cohabitation, existing in some kind of divine equality. His nose is slightly crooked from a time when, in fifth year, he startled me out of my studies and caused me to slam the heavy tome into his face, breaking his nose. His lips are thin, his hair light blond but not as white as his father. Maybe his colour is washed out, but that makes it even more astounding.

_It might be a little awkward to admit that now_, I admonish myself. But then, I always do. It's an unfortunate flaw in my personality, the only success that my dads' influence ever had on me:

The only thing I am ever afraid of, are the things that involve my relationship with Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy.

Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater, might be intimidating. Astoria Malfoy, formerly Greengrass, is certainly domineering and scornful. Their house is as large as the expansive dungeons at Hogwarts, probably larger, and it's easier to get lost here than it is in a maze.

I've known these things for a long time: they are facts that come from studying people and their reactions, things ingrained into my mind as deeply as my awareness of my own name. Dad dislikes Malfoy Manor because he came here twice, once as a prisoner, once getting lost while on a raid before he quit being an auror. Mum interacted with Astoria once, and she had looked down her nose at everyone, judging by how mum raved later. I was the one who met Malfoy Senior and put a name to the affect he had on everyone: _intimidation_. He manipulates circumstance to give himself power over others through their own fear.

Scorpius doesn't do any of these things. He's handsome and a talented wizard, yes, but it goes deeper than that. He _gets _me - I've also felt as much - and he encourages all my little fanatical quirks. When I decided to take off for a year, escape my parents, he didn't try to hold me back, but instead ensured I had everything I'd need, giving me money from his own coffers, more than my poor dad would have ever been able to provide. When I went out a bought a tiny little apartment on the edge of muggle London, he bit his tongue, though I knew he thought it to be exactly what it was - plain, dull, oppressive, claustrophobic: any negative adjective would apply, really - and helped me get what I wanted out of it, which made it even more claustrophobic. More recently, when I started to have nightmares, he willingly invited me to the Manor without an instant of hesitation, to stay in the guest suite in his wing.

Which, I now realised, is not where I am at all.

"This is your bed!"

He clears his throat, nodding quickly. "It's more comfortable than the guest bed."

I blink, since this is true, and nod, slower than he is. "But isn't it late?"

"It's only just gone eleven."

"I'm keeping you up!" I exclaim, moving to throw back the covers. I try to push through the wave of dizziness, twisting my body to put both feet on the floor, before gentle hands shove me right back down.

"I couldn't sleep anyway, Rose. Not when you might be d... hurt."

There's that hesitation again. I feel a chill deep down, somewhere beneath the nausea I'm still waiting for the potion to start suppressing. "Then where will you sleep?"

"The guest room." At Malfoy Manor, we have never shared a bed, not like when he stays with me, which, admittedly, isn't that often - maybe a couple days every two weeks. It's less often than not, at least. "I can rest there."

"No, you can't. You're going to sleep in here. With me."

He blinks. "But mother -"

"I wasn't going to invite your horribly haughty mother into bed, too, Scorp. I don't have the right to force you to give up your bed."

"But I invited -"

"_Besides_," I push on, quite reasonably, I think; "if you're afraid that I will be harmed, isn't it better that you're by my side? That way, you've got the constant comfort."

He looks at me for a very long time without saying anything at all, his eyes glinting in the candle light. I'm beginning to lose my nerve, sleepiness and exhaustion compromising my ability to prolong my attention span. Then, suddenly, when I'm on the verge of sleep -

"What did you see in the tapestry, Rose?"

Too tired to come up with an excuse, I roll over and shuffle to the other side of the bed, patting the spot behind me to coax him to sit, bribing him with the promise of a pre-warmed spot and maybe even answers. I say nothing until I feel the bed dip and hear him put out the candle.

"Down by Loch Lomond, I saw you," I tell him. "It seemed wrong, somehow, and then you were there, and it wasn't wrong any more. It was kind of really...nice."

He says nothing else, and for a moment, I think he's fallen asleep before me. _It'll make things awkward in the morning_, I'm thinking, considering that I'm aware I'm holding my breath but can't seem to be able to convince my lungs to work. But then his arms snake around my waist, and really, that's all the answer I need.


End file.
